Saturday, 14 July 2012

Hi everyone! I've been abit lacking on the bloggeroo front recently but I've been missing you guys!! What has everyone been upto?? Me? Well, it was my birthday a couple weeks ago and to celebrate my best friend and I booked ourselves on a Spa day at Aqua Sana in Center Parcs, Sherwood Forest. We had such a lovely time!!

Road trip!! Beautiful June day...welcome to the UK!

Sherwood Forest, I see you!!

Yay, Center Parcs...we have arrived!!

Driving through the Parc...

So beautiful and green

Finally reach the middle! :-)

To be honest I'm not a huge spa person just because I'm slightly body conscience and for me a spa experience is about hanging out with my girl friends and having a giggle so the idea of going to a spa in a posh hotel is slightly daunting for me! But I have to say I absolutely love the Aqua Sana Spa in Center Parcs! Its such a lovely friendly relaxed atmosphere with people of all ages just chilling and chatting and enjoying the experience.

As soon as we entered the Roman looking Aqua Sana building we were greeted by a lovely warm smile at reception who ran through the sequence of the day, gave us our arm band passes and handed us the keys to our lockers that contained our robes and towels. There are a few spa options available like half day, twilight spa, treatments etc...we went for the Full day spa not including an additional treatments which was £99 for two. This included a welcome drink and lunch at the Aldo Zilli Restaurant. Once we had changed into our swimwear we went through to the restaurant where we had our complimentary welcome drink...we chose an apple, strawberry and passion fruit smoothie...happy days! :-) Then onto the world of Sauna's!! lol

I couldn't take photo's inside the Spa itsself but here is the outside and reception area...

Aqua Sana has around 15 different types of sauna/steam room's and experiences including Indian blossom steam room, Turkish room, Japanese salt steam, Greek herbal sauna, foot spa, spa pool, zen garden and loads more (full list here). I love that there are so many different things to do and rooms/areas to explore so you wont get bored easily!

I've been to Aqua Sana a few times before and my fave thing to do is have a round spending about 5/10 mins in each of the rooms...by then I'm feeling super hot so I go upto to the balcony area on the 1st floor which is open to take in the fresh crisp air and the beautiful scenic view of trees while snuggling up on a full length lounger with THE most comfiest and softest faux fur blanket! Ok so I know this sounds simple but if you've ever been Aqua Sana you know what I'm talking about...going from the hot steamrooms to the fresh air is just so refreshing!!

My favourite is room of all is the Japanese salt steam...it has the most intense heat of them all so I can't stay in there for too long but I love the intensity as I really feel like I'm detoxing and sweating out all the impurities and my skin feels amazing afterwards!

My arm band...bracelets made by me! :-)

As we had the whole day we decided to pace ourselves so we leisurely spent a few hours at Aqua Sana, had our lunch at the Aldo Zilli restaurant which was fantastic, then head out for a walk and check out the main pool. I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the lunch! We ordered a creamy mushroom tagliatelle pasta and chicken & bacon panini. The panini was nice but the pasta was amazing! It was so fresh and delicate, the sauce was beautiful and you could tell it was made with love...it really was so delicious!

After lunch we decided to take a break, changed out of our swimsuits and had a wander around Center Parcs village shops and parks. If you're not familiar with Center Parcs it is a big holiday village based in leafy forest locations throughout the UK and France. The idea is you rent a chalet for a week or weekend and you can do as many activities as you like or as little as you like. They have looooads of different things to do! Outdoor, indoor and water based sports on their lakes, pottery painting, dance lessons, horse riding, bowling to name just a few and at the heart of the village is a big indoor tropical swimming pool under a huge dome shaped glass ceiling. So we had a little walk around the villiage and shops and stopped for a cheeky but epic dessert at the Pancake House!

Map of the park and restaurants...

Kids play area...

My friend bought me the special Jubilee Cherry one at the bottom...absolutely delicious!!

Indoor courts...

Manmade beach and lake for watersports...

Our waitress at the Pancake House was really lovely and when my friend told her it was my birthday she gave me a complimentary mocktail to say happy birthday which nice. But I'm not sure what was happening because the restaurant was empty apart from two tables when we arrived but we had to wait forever for our dessert (around 45mins!!) I have to admit despite the free drink I was getting quite impatient but when it did finally arrive it was damn good!! Warm and doughy...yum!!

We decided to swim off some of the calories by heading to the main swimming pool! Its such a gorgeous pool, I love all the palm trees and looking up to see the sky...it really does have that tropical vibe...well as close as you can get to tropical in the UK lol!! There are a couple of different slides/rapids which are awesome, a fun wave machine and a seperate outdoor pool with one a plunge pool too...I wasnt brave enough to have a go in the plunge pool though...its bloody freezing! lol

My swimsuit :-)

Bar and a Starbucks inside the dome...

Then we headed back to the Aqua Sana spa for the last hour of our day before we be kicked out by 6pm. So as you can tell I loved the whole day and litterally can't wait to go back again hopefully for a full week or weekend! But the best part of my day was spending it with my best friend :-)

Cherry Lane xoxo

p.s. sorry for the long post...I got abit excited lol! oh and also, it might seem like this post was sponsered or something but it wasnt...I just love the place lol